In serial communication protocol devices, there exists a requirement to characterize the signaling between devices. However, serial communication protocols vary in their requirements for the test data patterns used to perform such signal characterization. Further, said protocols are often under constant revision. For example, depending on the specific protocol, test data patterns may be required to be scrambled, encoded, serialized, or some combination of these operations. In addition to these test data pattern requirements, serial communication protocol devices also transmit and receive standard data signals which may also be required to be scrambled, encoded, serialized, or some combination of these operations, depending on the type of data or the specific protocol.